The Lodger
by MsEstora
Summary: In which Obi-Wan has a horrible roommate whom Anakin won't help him get rid of. Shameless, shameless crack.


_Disclaimer:__ This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by George Lucas. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended._

A/N: Written for a friend (hi, Rin!) over on Tumblr a little while back! The request was: "a story where Obi-Wan has a horrible roommate whom Anakin won't help him get rid of. (Spoiler alert: It's Garen.) Obi-Wan threatens to stay on Alderaan until Anakin comms Obi-Wan a picture of Garen's empty room. This in no way reflects IRL events."I think I did a good job with it. I hope my readers here enjoy it!

* * *

**the lodger**

The smell of fine Alderaanian hashish was the first sign that something was wrong; for one thing, Obi-Wan knew Anakin had no way of coming into possession of something so expensive unless he'd turned Obi-Wan's bedroom inside out, and for another, the smell was accompanied obnoxious laughter that was definitely not just Anakin's.

The apartment was a mess. This was not an usual state of being when Obi-Wan left Anakin to his own devices for more than two days; usually, upon returning, he'd have to use the Force to clear a path through the dirty clothes and nuts and bolts and screws belonging to Anakin's often-disastrous mechanical creations that were left lying about. Attempts to impart Anakin with better cleanliness skills were unsuccessful: "But Maaaster, I'm a mechanical _genius_. This Is My Design!" and "I'M PLAYING 'THE FLOOR IS MADE OF LAVA', LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Today the floor was the same, but a troubling mix of pornography holozines and booze stains also joined it. "Let's see how you'd like _real_ lava one day," Obi-Wan grumbled, navigating the floor carefully, and made his way over to the couch where his Padawan and a very unwelcome houseguest were reclining and puffing on pipes.

Obi-Wan liked to cover his furniture with plastic, but the plastic covering the couch had been thrown off sometime in the last few days. In those last few days, Anakin somehow managed to stain most of the couch with what looked like nine or ten different liquids, and Obi-Wan had a bad feeling that not all of those liquids were traditionally drinkable.

"Master!" Anakin exclaimed, finally noticing Obi-Wan as he coughed while exhaling a cloud of smoke. Obi-Wan's lips were pinched tightly as he stared at him.

"Hello, Anakin." He moved his gaze across. "Garen."

"Heyyyyyy!" Garen threw his arms up but made no attempt to stand and hug Obi-Wan, either because he was too stoned to balance or because he wasn't wearing any pants. Probably the former, as Garen didn't have many issues with walking around pantless. "Oafy! Oafy, Oafy, Oafyyyy…"

Anakin seemed to find this amusing – he snorted hard and coughed on a lungful of weed. Garen smacked Obi-Wan's Padawan on the back and lifted his boots (they were extremely dirty, Obi-Wan noted) onto the coffee table with a 'thud'. It shook some of the wine bottles standing up, jostling the liquid inside them. Obi-Wan hoped they wouldn't spill; the floor looked hard enough to recover as it was.

"You stranger, you – where've you beeeeeen?"

"Busy," Obi-Wan said tightly, "raising a Padawan, whom you are presently corrupting and undoing years of very hard work that I have put into him. Take your shoes off my table at once."

"Nuh-uh." Garen crossed his legs on the table now, and the subsequent 'thud' dislodged a piece of mud stuck to his sole. Anakin found this funny, too, and laughed obnoxiously. Obi-Wan resisted the urge to yank the pipe out of his hands and rap him sharply across the head.

"C'mon, Oafy, come… come join us, thish – this is _good_ stuff."

Yes, he knew it was good stuff, which is what made this all so painful. "_That_ was a gift from –" Obi-Wan cut himself off and closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. "Garen. You have no reason to be here."

"Actually, I do, see, I'm kinda homeless right now."

"This is the Jedi Temple and you are a Jedi, Garen," Obi-Wan said, as though bringing logic into the conversation would help at all. "You are not homeless. If something is wrong with your complex then you will be reassigned one. Kindly gather your belongings and –" He broke off and peered more closely at the bottles. "Have you been urinating in my wine?!"

"Nonononono," Garen reassured him. "We _drank_ the wine first, it's okay. And that's Anakin's piss."

"Garen peed in the pot plants," Anakin added helpfully, which didn't make Obi-Wan feel any better. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"Right, that's enough, both of you. Anakin, clean yourself up. Garen, get out this instant."

"But Obiiiiii… ol' buddy ol' pal, you're not gonna throw your old friend out, are you?" Garen whined, making no attempt to follow Obi-Wan's orders.

"Why shouldn't I?" Obi-Wan demanded.

Garen had a way of making himself look utterly pitiful. Not pitiful in the sense that Obi-Wan felt sympathy for him; pitiful in the sense that whatever situation he was in, he'd clearly done it to himself and had made absolutely zero steps to improve himself in any respect. "Welllll, it's just, the Council won't give me a new place until I've fixed my other apartment, and I blew this month's stipend on a hooker the other night so I can't rent anywhere, and Anakin said I could stay."

There were a lot of questions Obi-Wan had to that, such as, what had Garen even _done_ to his apartment to warrant the Council refusing him alternative quarters, whether Garen had used protection or not with the hooker and had he been checked for transmitted diseases, and why he couldn't mooch of someone else. He ended up spluttering, glancing back and forth between the degenerates on his (now stained) couch, "You – but – Anakin, you cannot just invite people over to stay without consulting me!"

Anakin just shrugged, and Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes at him.

"One day, Anakin," he vowed, "I will make sure you are paired up with the worst, most insufferable, disrespectful, pain-in-the-arse apprentice I can possibly find. And when you come to me for help or advice, I will laugh in your face."

"w/e."

Obi-Wan had long given up teaching Anakin to speak like a civilised being. He gazed at Garen now. "So you're staying then, are you?"

"Yup."

He turned to Anakin. "And you're not going to help me make him leave?"

"Nope."

Obi-Wan stared for a moment, then shrugged. "All right, then," he said, and turned around and went straight to his bedroom.

True to his prior suspicions, Obi-Wan's room had been turned inside out and the wooden box that held the two Alderaanian pipes and the hashish had been tossed carelessly to the side. Various articles of once-folded clothing were strewn across the floor and there was an unpleasant smell emanating from the en suite 'fresher. Obi-Wan suppressed the fantasy of killing Garen and Anakin (that wouldn't count as being Dark-sided, would it?) and gathered as many of his untarnished belongings as he could, packed them into a small bag, and returned to the trashed living room.

"Well, enjoy," he told Anakin and Garen pleasantly. Anakin did a double-take at him, observing the back pack.

"Wait, you're leaving?" he exclaimed. "Where are you going?"

"Alderaan, for a few _diplomatic proceedings_, shall we say. Rest assured, I will not be returning until Knight Muln has vacated the premises." Obi-Wan hefted his bag over his shoulder, frowned at Garen (who was busy picking his nose), and nodded at his wayward apprentice. "Good luck, Anakin."

He turned sharply on his heel and walked out.

Garen thudded his boots on the table again, and one of the bottles of piss tipped over.

* * *

"And how long exactly do you intend to stay on Alderaan, Master Kenobi?"

Queen Breha was reportedly a very generous and kind woman, but Obi-Wan highly suspected she drew a firm line at being hospitable towards her husband's lover. As grateful to Bail as he was for letting him stay here and inviting him to a private dinner, Obi-Wan was beginning to wonder if it would be more comfortable back in his apartment.

Then he thought of the bottle of piss, and reconsidered.

But back to Queen Breha's question: he would leave as soon as his residence was vacated and cleaned – or for as long as Alderaan's hospitality extended, which Obi-Wan suspected wouldn't last for more than a few days, if he was lucky. A week at most. "Hopefully not long, Your Majesty," he attempted to reassure her.

"He can stay as long as he needs," Bail interjected quickly, but his constitution withered a little under Breha's falsely pleasant glare that was now sharply directed at him.

"I see," she said.

They all fell silent. Bail prodded at his mash potatoes, avoiding both Obi-Wan's and Breha's glances.

"You have a very, uh… nice garden," Obi-Wan said to fill the silence.

"Thank you," Breha replied coolly.

"We're on the lookout for gardeners," Bail added, but this killed the conversation and nothing further was said on the matter.

* * *

Obi-Wan had been on Alderaan for five days when he finally received a message from Anakin that appealed to him. The previous messages (mostly written whilst drunk and/or high) were about what a party pooper Obi-Wan and, on one occasion, a love letter dedicated to Senator Amidala. There were also copious pictures of Anakin's dick and Garen's butt crack, and of something on one of Obi-Wan's fine porcelain plates that was decidedly _not_chocolate fudge.

The most recent message was by far the most lucid:

_– __hey master, it's me. i'm getting hungry, can you come back and make me something to eat? garen can't cook for shit_

Obi-Wan replied: _What a pity_.

There was a long delay before he received Anakin's next message.

– _pretty please? everythings all tidy and garens gone now!_

Obi-Wan replied: _Pics or it didn't happen._

A picture of a very tidy, Garen-less apartment was transmitted through. Anakin attached the message '_see?' _to it. Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the holopic, examining the wavering blue image as best he could, but still packed his bag and bade Bail farewell.

"Probably best you don't stay much longer anyway," Bail said, seeing Obi-Wan off. "Breha's hack Healer mentioned something about checking you out, since you were hanging around and he doesn't have anything better to do."

Bail and Obi-Wan shuddered simultaneously before parting ways.

* * *

Obi-Wan had much experience with being kidnapped and locked in various holding cells over the years, but he could say with absolute honesty that none of those places were as unhygienic as his apartment. Even _Xanatos_ had been very particular about his dungeon conditions.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan snapped. "You sent me a false picture!"

Anakin was busy consuming a take-out pizza ("none pizza with left beef", the box proclaimed). "Huh?" he said with his mouth full, then swallowed with difficulty. "Oh. Right. That. Soz."

"You also said you were hungry."

"Well, I _was_, but then I found your savings card and got take-away."

Suddenly the prospect of Breha's hack Healer didn't seem so awful in comparison. Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose tightly, which also helped in blocking out the horrific smell of vomit, piss, alcohol, and Force knew what else. "Where's Garen?" he asked wearily, not sure if he wanted the answer.

"Gone! Totally gone!" Anakin said, but the sound of someone repeatedly flushing the toilet in the 'fresher was unmistakable.

"Shit, Skywalker. There's an issue here!" Garen called out from the 'fresher. "You know how the Council won't let me go back to my apartment until I fix the problem? I, uh. I kinda gave this apartment the same problem. Sorry."


End file.
